1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an organizing device, and in particular, an organizing device which is particularly suited for organizing brackets and the bonding material used in orthodontic treatment, and optional enhancements of said device.
2. Description of the Related Art
During the course of orthodontic treatment, small brackets are attached to a patient's teeth. The purpose of these brackets is to transfer the forces from the orthodontic wires, springs, rubber bands, and other assorted attachments to the teeth.
In any one patient's mouth, the individual teeth are formed in various sizes, shapes, and contours. Since the orthodontic brackets are essentially cemented to the teeth, it is desirable to have the base of the bracket shaped and contoured to adapt as closely as possible to the surface of the particular tooth to which it will be bonded. Thus, on any given patient, an orthodontist may have as many differently designed brackets to bond as there are teeth.
Manufacturers of orthodontic brackets often ship the brackets in bulk, where like brackets are packaged together. When a patient is scheduled to have braces put on, it is then necessary for the orthodontist, or one of his employees, to remove one of each type of bracket to be utilized on that particular patient, and to organize and arrange those brackets so that they may be efficiently retrieved when needed.
Such efficiency requires that the brackets be arranged so that an orthodontist or his assistant is able to glance at the set of brackets and immediately know which bracket corresponds to any given particular tooth. In addition, each bracket must be held in a particular orientation such that, when picked up by the assistant with the appropriate orthodontic instrument, the base of the bracket is exposed and available for application of the cement, or bonding material.
In addition to organizing the required brackets, it is also necessary to have the bonding material ready for use. This requires removing a small amount of the material from the bulk packaging in which it is purchased, and placing the material to be used on an appropriate, clean surface, until such time that it is required for application to the bracket.
Several products currently exist on the market for organizing brackets and bonding materials. They all consist of a thin sheet of plastic with small openings cut into the material. The openings are aligned in two rows, each row with the same number of openings. Affixed to the undersurface of the plastic sheet is a strip of tape or other material with an adhesive on one surface. The strip is oriented such that the adhesive surface sticks to the undersurface of the plastic sheet and completely covers the openings mentioned above. When the sheet is laid on a flat surface, one sees two rows of small adhesive circles showing through the plastic material. Each opening is sized appropriately for one bracket, and each row of openings is designed to hold enough brackets for either the upper or the lower teeth. This product is often called a "bracket pad".
Thus the brackets for the upper teeth would be placed on the first row of adhesive circles, and the lower brackets on the second row. The brackets on the left side of the pad will correspond to the teeth on the patient's left, and the brackets on the right side of the pad will correspond to the teeth on the patient's right. Additionally, the adhesive circles are usually numbered to correspond with particular teeth. The adhesive strip not only serves to hold the brackets in place while transferring the brackets to the treatment area, but it keeps the brackets in the proper orientation for efficient removal and application of cement.
In addition to the bracket organizing aspects of the currently available products, many of them also incorporate a method of organizing the bonding material. This method usually involves small depressions in a portion of the plastic sheet that has been formed to rise above the level of the adhesive circles. These depressions can hold small quantities of the bonding materials in either liquid or paste forms.
Additional products exist specifically for use in organizing the bonding materials alone, with no mechanism for organizing and/or orienting orthodontic brackets. Such products are usually in the form of a small sheet of paper or cardboard wherein one surface of the sheet is treated and/or manufactured as to be essentially impermeable and non-absorbent to liquids. Said sheets are then stacked and bound in stack form on one edge to create a pad of multiple sheets for efficient packaging and storage. When it is necessary to prepare the materials for the procedure of bonding brackets to teeth, the top sheet is removed for use, and the necessary amounts of bonding materials are placed on the treated surface. Such products are often called "mixing pads".
The available products are intended to be disposable. Thus each bracket pad would be used to hold the brackets necessary for one patient. Each mixing pad would hold the bonding materials necessary for one patient. Following the bracket placement procedure, the pads should be disposed of, thus eliminating the need for sterilization before use with another patient.
The available products, however, have practical deficiencies. One such deficiency involves the method of organizing the bonding material. The current bracket pad design is acceptable for materials that do not require mixing prior to use. Many bonding materials used in orthodontics, however, require the mixing together of two fluid or paste components immediately prior to placement on the tooth or bracket. With the current bracket pads, these materials would need to be removed from their holding areas on the bracket pad and mixed together. This additional step causes additional costs due to excess waste of material and the requirement of an additional surface, such as a mixing pad, on which to perform the mixing procedure. Orthodontists employing such bonding materials often place theses materials directly onto the mixing pad surface, bypassing the bracket pad altogether. They thereby avoid the waste of materials, but the additional bonding material organizing feature designed into the bracket pad then becomes superfluous.
A second deficiency associated with the currently available bracket pads is their cost. The manufacturing process necessary to mold and stamp the plastic sheets is relatively costly when compared to that of other disposable products. While these products are designed to be disposable, many orthodontists consider them too expensive to dispose of following each procedure. The bracket pads are often used on several different patients before disposal. Thus, in practice, the currently available bracket pads are not a disposable product, notwithstanding such claims by the manufacturers.
The third disadvantage of the presently available bracket pads follows from the second disadvantage: Since the manufacturers claim that their products are disposable, they do not design them to be sterilized by currently available sterilization techniques. Since many end users consider the products to be too expensive for disposal after a single use, they use the product on several different patients before disposal. This situation creates obvious cross-contamination concerns.
A fourth disadvantage associated of the presently available bracket pads involves the alignment of the openings designed for each bracket. In all presently available products, the bracket holding areas are arranged such that the brackets will be in two straight rows, one for the upper brackets, and one for the lower brackets (as previously described.) It is difficult for a newly hired trainee to visualize which bracket on the pad correspond to which tooth in the mouth. It is also difficult for an orthodontist to oversee the job being performed by his assistant, since it may be difficult to "read" the bracket pad at a glance. The teeth in the mouth are obviously not arranged in a straight line. This increases the likelihood of an assistant handing an incorrect bracket to the orthodontist during the bonding procedure.
Accordingly, each of the bracket pads presently available for use in organizing orthodontic brackets and bonding materials prior to use have a number of deficiencies. There remains in the trade a need for a lightweight, cost-effective, efficiently designed, sufficiently non-liquid-permeable, disposable orthodontic bracket pad which poses no risk of cross-contamination, provides the necessary bracket organization and orientation, and allows for use, without an additional mixing pad, of orthodontic bonding materials, regardless of the necessity, or lack thereof, to mix said bonding materials together prior to use.